


Plane as Day

by amethystviolist



Series: Celebrate HTTYD Challenge Week [6]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Definitely Cute, F/M, Fluff, Plane Seatmates, maybe a little funny?, random meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amethystviolist/pseuds/amethystviolist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curiosity can be a very dangerous thing. Hiccup just wanted to know what kind of music his seatmate was listening to. Astrid just wanted to know what her seatmate was reading. Awkward situations somehow turn out well in the end, though, and maybe a dancer and a dreamer can be friends despite their insatiable curiosity.</p><p>[For the Dancing and the Dreaming (Celebrate HTTYD Day 6)]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plane as Day

**Author's Note:**

> What do you mean I didn't post this in the same week- of course I did- this is definitely not multiple weeks later...
> 
> I may have forgotten about this a little bit. Just a little bit.

He shouldn’t do it. Every social rule in the book went against this absurdly intrusive act and if someone did it to Hiccup then he would be fairly offended and/or weirded out.

But he wanted to know so badly. 

When the blonde woman had sat down next to him with a decidedly ungraceful thump, Hiccup just moved over as far as he could on the tiny plane seats and ignored her like a good seatmate. She had looked at him a few times, he knew, because he could feel her piercing blue eyes on the side of his head, but Hiccup pointedly refused to look at her and make this trip any more awkward than it was fated to be in the first place (come on, any five hour plane ride with a stranger is awkward, there’s no getting around that).  

After she had settled in and the plane had taken off, the woman had put on the complementary earbuds and promptly fallen asleep. Given the size of the jet, the engines were loud, and every once in a while, Hiccup caught snippets of her subsequently loud music blaring from the earbuds. He couldn’t even guess from her clothing what she liked to listen to- she was wearing a simple, comfortable blue T-shirt and some well-worn black jeans. No print on the shirt gave away what music she liked, and seeing as Hiccup had carefully ignored her, nothing she said gave it away either. 

Well, Hiccup’s greatest sin was curiosity.

So half an hour into the trip when the woman was snoring lightly and one earbud fell out, Hiccup was very, very tempted to pick up the earpiece and find out what she was listening to. He didn’t really have anything else to do, after all. And she was asleep! She would never know. 

Hiccup vigorously waved his hand in front of her face, but to his relief, she didn’t move. He snapped his fingers a few times as loudly as possible, but still, she didn’t react. 

Slowly and cautiously, he snuck his hand over and delicately lifted up the fallen earbud. The cord trembled, but the other side stayed in her left ear, which was closest to Hiccup. There was plenty of cord left to get it to his own right ear. He placed it lightly into his ear, and waited for a few seconds as the track was apparently changing.

To his surprise, orchestral music opened with a loud, ominous first line, punctuated by trumpets and bass instruments he couldn’t name. A dramatic pause, and the lower strings section repeated the phrase. A second moment of stillness, during which Hiccup held his breath for the next note, and then a gentle, harmonious chorus of flutes and other winds changed the tone of the piece entirely.

But the true moment when Hiccup knew he wasn’t going to take out that earbud was the next high, vibrating, soul-resonating note from a single violin.

The solo was like nothing Hiccup had ever heard before. He didn’t listen to orchestral music on his own, and now, suddenly, here was something absolutely beautiful he had been blind to all his life. The notes were hesitant at first, and quiet, but gained confidence and volume, sending out a plaintive melody that struck an answering chord within Hiccup.

Enraptured, Hiccup listened to the whole piece for forty minutes. If the woman had woken up, Hiccup wasn’t sure he would have given back her earbud until the piece was over.

But an hour later, partially into another breathtaking orchestral piece, Hiccup’s bladder reminded him of the water he had chugged when security was about to confiscate his water bottle as he boarded the plane. Sighing, he relinquished the stolen earbud and squeezed past the woman into the aisle. She woke up, blinked at Hiccup for a moment, and he mumbled an apology before hurrying away.

By the time he came back from the tiniest bathroom in existence, the woman was (sadly) awake with both earbuds in place. So Hiccup unwrapped his own earbuds, plugged them into the media system on the back of the seat in front of him, and found a music station to play orchestral music for himself. After a few minutes of listening blissfully to the blending of instruments- and sometimes choir voices, he discovered happily- Hiccup’s hands were fidgeting for something to do. He reached for his bag under the seat, and withdrew his sketchbook, a pencil, and an eraser. Hiccup curled up in his seat and began to draw whatever came to mind as the music played- a new design for his leg, his cat named Toothless, some sketches of dragons… and eventually, he found himself shading in the profile of the woman next to him. 

Hiccup self-consciously tilted his notebook away from her and continued to draw her expressions, ranging from her sleeping face, to the scowl she now wore, to the brief, polite smile from when she had first sat down. He hadn’t particularly noticed it when she had first arrived, but now that Hiccup wasn’t trying to ignore her, it was painfully obvious that his seatmate was breathtakingly attractive. Her blond hair was messily braided over a shoulder, her chin was small but firmly set, and her blue eyes roved over the other passengers curiously and alertly while she tapped her fingers in time with her music. Hiccup felt almost compelled to document the beauty of the stranger, and though he tried to focus on engineering designs or just doodles of dragons, his pencil kept coming back to the shape of her eyes, and the curve of her lips...

Eventually, lulled by the combination of lilting flute harmonies and the gentle motion of the plane, Hiccup’s head dropped to his shoulder and his eyelids fluttered closed.

~~~~~

She shouldn’t do it. Every social rule in the book went against this absurdly intrusive act and if someone did it to Astrid then she would be fairly offended and/or weirded out.

But she wanted to know so badly. 

When she had exhaustedly dropped into her seat at the end of a very narrow aisle, the man had just moved slightly closer to the window and avoided eye contact. Astrid normally would have been grateful, but the more she looked at the man, the more she wondered if it might be worth breaking the unspoken code of conduct for unknown seatmates to speak to him. 

Specifically, to ask for his number.

Maybe it had something to do with just being incredibly exhausted, or recently liberated from a stressful relationship with someone she didn’t even like that much in the first place, but Astrid found her eyes constantly tracing the man’s sharp jaw, his mussed auburn hair, and shockingly green eyes over a smattering of freckles. It was when he glanced up and very nearly caught her staring that Astrid realized she was just being creepy. She should say hello, and start a smooth, flirty conversation. 

Or completely embarrass herself, and then sit with the man for five more hours.

That sobering thought made the decision easy, so Astrid fumbled for the pocket on the seat in front of her and withdrew the small packaged earbuds. A few taps on her iPhone, and then Brahms’ Fourth Symphony blared into her ears, effectively silencing any thoughts of the attractive stranger next to her. She rested her head back against the seat, and the gentle vibrations of the plane and her missed hours of sleep from the past two nights sent her to sleep within minutes. She slept so deeply, in fact, that she only woke up when her seatmate was climbing over her and apologizing profusely. 

Firmly awake once again, Astrid found herself with only music to occupy her for the rest of the flight. A glance at her watch showed that she had been asleep for only an hour and a half, meaning there were still three and a half hours left to go. Astrid sighed and reached for an airline magazine in the pocket in front of her. As expected, new designs for airplane parts were not fascinating, and Astrid found herself wishing she was in the oblivion of sleep again. Her seatmate had returned from the bathroom, and he was reading a book, curled almost like a cat with his legs tucked up in the seat and his back against the window. 

She tried to lean forward for various pretend reasons in order to stare at the cover of the book from every possible angle, but he must have taken off the jacket, which left behind a plain, leather cover with no text to give her a clue as to what book it was. Astrid never read much, but even having someone talk about a book she hadn’t read would be more exciting than an airplane catalog. Whatever he was reading, he was thoroughly engrossed in it, and Astrid was dying to know if it was something she would be remotely interested in.

Well, Astrid’s greatest sin was curiosity.

So half an hour later, when the auburn-haired man had fallen asleep with his mouth slightly open, Astrid was very, very tempted to pick up the book and find out what he was reading. She didn’t really have anything else to do, after all. And he was asleep! He would never know. 

Astrid vigorously waved her hand in front of his face, but to her relief, he didn’t move. She snapped her fingers a few times as loudly as possible, but still, he didn’t react. 

Slowly and cautiously, she snuck her hand over and delicately lifted up the book sliding out of his limp hands. The man shifted slightly and Astrid froze, but then he settled and began snoring peacefully again. Letting out a relieved breath, Astrid pulled the book into her own lap and opened to the first page.

Immediately, Astrid realized that it wasn’t the kind of book she had assumed it was. She was holding the man’s personal sketchbook in her hands, and the first two pages made a beautiful spread of a bat-winged dragon. The detail on the scales, the shading around the body… Astrid was no artist, but she knew skill when she saw it. With a wary look at the sleeping man next to her, Astrid flipped to the next page. This one wasn’t so much a single picture, but it was covered with smaller doodles and sketches. Some were dragons, some were cats, and here and there she saw prints of objects that looked more like blueprints than art. It was all incredibly detailed, and absolutely fascinating.

But the true moment when Astrid knew she wasn’t going to stop looking through the sketchbook was the next page that showed a small, detailed picture of her own face.

The sketch was like nothing Astrid had ever seen before. She usually didn’t seek out visual art on her own, and now, suddenly, here was something absolutely beautiful she had been blind to all her life. The strokes of the pencil seemed light and hesitant at first, but gained confidence and dimension, displaying a level of insight and beauty that struck an answering chord within Astrid.

Enraptured, Astrid slowly looked through the whole book for forty minutes. If the man had woken up, Astrid wasn’t sure she would have given back his sketchbook until she reached the end. There was something beautiful in the delicately curving lines on the page, and she never wanted to stop looking at the creations before her. And seeing herself portrayed more and more frequently only increased her curiosity to see all that she could.

Completely engrossed by the sketches, Astrid failed to notice when her seatmate stopped snoring.

~~~~~

When Hiccup woke up to a particularly loud percussion section pounding his eardrums, it took a moment for him to get his bearings. Sleepily, he reached up to rub his eyes, only to nearly stab himself with his own pencil. Hiccup grimaced and quickly lowered his hands, reaching for the sketchbook that must have fallen to the side. 

Suddenly frowning, Hiccup sat up and actually looked when he didn’t feel the leather cover of his sketchbook on his lap. It wasn’t on either side of the seat, he hadn’t put it in the pocket in front of him… Hiccup turned to the right with a pounding heart.

His seatmate- the very attractive blonde woman whose earbud he had borrowed- was  _ looking through his sketchbook _ .

Hiccup let out a rather undignified yelp, and snatched it out of her hands as fast as humanly possible. Had she seen his engineering designs? Or his dragon doodles? Had she seen the sketches of herself yet? The woman’s head snapped up and her bright blue eyes widened.

“I can explain!” they both said simultaneously. A moment passed in which they pointedly looked away, then hesitantly glanced at each other again.

“Uh, ladies first?” Hiccup offered nervously. The woman shot him a half-hearted glare, but then drew in a deep breath and began speaking.

“I- Well, I saw it… falling, and I happened to catch it. The book. The sketchbook! Yes. And, uh, it was open, and your drawings are really  _ really _ good, so I might have… looked through a few… of them…” She awkwardly cleared her throat and crossed her arms defensively. “Why are there sketches of me in there?”

“Oh! It’s, um… It’s… I was just sketching my surroundings, you know, and you happened to be here, uh, next to me, so I might have drawn you a few times just for convenience’s sake, I mean, you’re so beautiful- ah! A b-beautiful model, with a nice profile, and, um... “ Hiccup took a deep breath. “Also-I-might-have-listened-to-your-music-while-you-slept.”

“...What?” The woman looked at him in confusion. “You listened to what when you slept?”

“No, I, uh…” Hiccup cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “I’m trying to say that you aren’t the only one to invade privacy here. While you were asleep, one of your earbuds fell out and I, uh… borrowed it.”

“Oh.” She considered this for a moment, her eyes darting down to the notebook then back to meet his eyes again. “What did you think?”

“I thought it was beautiful,” Hiccup replied truthfully. “I actually found a classical station for myself after you were awake.”

The tiny space was silent except for the rumbling of the plane engines as the two seatmates tried to decide if they had stepped over the ‘socially acceptable’ line too far.

“My name is Astrid,” the woman announced abruptly, sticking out a pale hand.

“Hiccup,” he replied, shaking her hand and grinning. 

Astrid gave him a weird look. “I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Hiccup,” he repeated clearly. “I mean, it’s not my birth name, but no one ever calls me my real name.”

“What given name is bad enough that ‘Hiccup’ is a better option?” Astrid asked with raised eyebrows.

Hiccup just grimaced. “Don’t even ask. Uh, so do you have a favorite classical song?”

Astrid smirked at his obvious subject change, but allowed it with a small shake of her head. “It’s usually referred to as a ‘piece’, not a song, and…” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I think  _ Scheherazade _ might be my favorite. But I’m partial to a lot of Tchaikovsky, too.”

“Okay, Tchaikovsky did  _ The Nutcracker _ , but I don’t know the other one,” Hiccup admitted. Astrid grinned, and plucked out one earbud, scrolling through her phone until she tapped something decisively.

“Here,” she said. “This is  _ Scheherazade _ . Rimsky-Korsakov. Do you know the story?”

“Story?” Hiccup repeated curiously, adjusting the borrowed earbud in his ear.

The blonde woman tapped the pause button before the song-  _ piece _ \- started, but she made no move to draw away from the proximity forced by sharing earbuds. Hiccup felt his heart beat a little faster as her warm breath ghosted across the mere inches between them.

“It’s a story from  _ One Thousand and One Nights _ . There was a king who famously slept with different beautiful women and then had them killed the morning after-”

“Wait, this is pretty classical music, you’re telling me it’s about a king  _ murdering _ his… lovers?” Hiccup protested, forgetting any romantic thoughts he had been entertaining.

“Usually classical music isn’t simply ‘pretty’,” Astrid scoffed. “Anyway, that’s not what it’s about. A woman named Scheherazade came to lie with the king, but she told him a thrilling story, only to stop at the most exciting part.”

“Cliffhangers.” Hiccup narrowed his eyes. “I hate cliffhangers.”

“So did the king,” Astrid agreed. “He couldn’t kill Scheherazade because he had to know how it ended. Then the next night, she finished the previous story, started another, and ended on another cliffhanger. This happened for a thousand and one nights, and by then… the king was in love with her. He couldn’t kill her. So he married her and they lived happily ever after.”

“That’s remarkably clever,” Hiccup observed. “How did she come up with that many stories?”

“I don’t know,” Astrid shrugged. “But Rimsky-Korsakov wrote this music to be a background for some of those stories. Right now I’m working on putting the music and the stories together on stage.”

“On stage? You’re a director?” Hiccup asked with interest.

“Oh, uh, no.” Astrid smiled at him, her eyes alit with passion. “I’m a dancer! This is the first time I get to choreograph a number for my company.”

“That is  _ awesome _ ,” Hiccup decided immediately. “I have two left feet. I can hardly walk, much less dance.” To his surprise, Astrid snorted and began laughing, holding a hand over her mouth.

It was  _ really _ cute. But Hiccup tried not to think about that.

“I’m sure you’re better than you think,” Astrid said kindly once her laughter was under control. “Maybe you could show me sometime.” There was an invitation in there somewhere, Hiccup could almost see it, but he second-guessed himself. He had to be reading too much into it. Astrid was way out of his league, and a very fit and flexible dancer besides. She wouldn’t be interested in some skinny engineer she met on a plane.

“Maybe I’ll just come see your number instead,” Hiccup replied rather cautiously. Astrid grinned. 

“I’d like that. Ready to hear the piece?” She hit play, and within the first minute, a very familiar violin solo soared over the rest of the orchestra.

“I heard this!” Hiccup exclaimed delightedly. “When I listened while you were asleep, that’s the piece I listened to!”

Astrid regarded him critically. “And what did you think of it?”

“It’s the piece that made me want to hear more,” Hiccup replied truthfully. “It’s amazing.”

“I thought the same about your drawings,” Astrid admitted. “You’re really talented.”

“Oh, I- Not really. That’s just what you get from a bored engineer,” Hiccup deflected.

“No, they’re good!” Astrid insisted. She grabbed the sketchbook from him and opened to a random page full of drawings. “Look at the detail! And the shading is beautiful. And I have no idea what the heck this thing is supposed to do, but it looks awesome.”

Hiccup looked more closely at the design she pointed out, and grinned. “Oh, that’s an idea for prosthetic limb that connects to the nervous system, thus controlled by the brain as if it was a normal limb. See, mirror neurons are usually just for observational learning, but if you could repurpose them to make a prosthesis mimic a functioning limb-”

“You have totally lost me,” Astrid interrupted bluntly. “But it sounds really cool.”

“It would be, if I could get the science to back me up,” Hiccup shrugged, and shot her a wistful smile. “We can dream, right?”

“A dancer and a dreamer,” Astrid snorted. “What a pair.”

“I know a love song about those two things,” Hiccup commented without thinking. Astrid began smirking, and Hiccup’s eyes immediately widened in horror.

“No! Not that- I mean, it’s just a song! That I know! I didn’t mean- I was trying-” Hiccup buried his face in his hands. “Just throw me off the plane now,” he muttered.

Astrid laughed, but to Hiccup’s relief it sounded kind. “So you’re saying you can sing as well as draw?” 

“That is  _ not _ what I am saying,” Hiccup quickly countered. “My singing sounds like a bunch of frogs being tortured.”

“Why would anyone torture frogs?” Astrid asked, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

“Let me have my pathetic, illogical metaphors in peace,” Hiccup groaned melodramatically.

The rest of the flight passed almost too quickly. By the time the plane landed, the seatmates had exchanged numbers, Hiccup had noted the possible date of Astrid’s performance, and Astrid had tucked away a carefully folded sketch torn from Hiccup’s book.

So even as he wandered around looking for his annoying cousin, Hiccup found himself contentedly humming an all too familiar song under his breath.

~~~~~

_...I only want you near me, _

_ To love and kiss, to sweetly hold, _

_ For the dancing and the dreaming. _

_ Through all life’s sorrows and delights _

_ I’ll keep your laugh inside me... _


End file.
